Spurs respect Rockets

Four games into the season, the winless Houston Rockets still haven’t figured out what to do with center Yao Ming and his surgically repaired left foot.

Heading into tonight’s game at the AT&T Center, the Spurs are more concerned about what to do with Luis Scola, Aaron Brooks and Kevin Martin.

The Rockets, still struggling to make peace with Yao’s doctor-prescribed nightly limit of 24 minutes, are off to their worst start since 1999-2000. Knowing from experience that Houston, with or without a full dose of Yao, is too talented to go 0-82, the Spurs are preparing for a street fight.

“Houston is a good team,” Spurs point guard Tony Parker said. “They’re looking for their first win, and we’re going to have to match their energy.”

The Spurs don’t have to reach too far into their memory banks for an example of how lethal Houston can be, even without its 7-foot-6 Chinese linchpin.

In a 109-104 Rockets victory Feb. 26, Scola, Brooks and Martin each surpassed the 30-point mark against the Spurs, a first in Houston’s club history.

Clichéd or not, the Spurs figure in the case of the Rockets, the old “throw out the records” line is probably good policy.

“It’s another game in the NBA, and they’re a good basketball team,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “I don’t care what their record is. Records don’t mean much at this point.”

The Rockets’ 0-4 mark has been as surprising a storyline in the Southwest Division as New Orleans’ 4-0 start. Houston was, and probably still is, expected to make a push for a playoff spot with Yao back on the floor.

Truth be told, however, the Spurs tonight are less interested in the guys in Rockets red and more interested in the guys in the mirror.

Though they are a healthy 3-1, coming off a road sweep of the Los Angeles Clippers and Phoenix, the Spurs also know they are not quite ready to challenge the Lakers for Western Conference supremacy.

Ball security is one concern.

On their two-game road trip, the Spurs committed a combined 41 turnovers good for 47 points, usually a prescription for disaster on the road.

The Spurs were able to overcome their gift-giving in Phoenix with some opportunistic defense of their own, scoring 18 points off 13 turnovers. The Suns managed just four more points off 10 more Spurs miscues.

“That we even had an opportunity to win that game was very fortunate,” said small forward Richard Jefferson, the Spurs’ early leader in scoring at 20 points per game. “We still know we have a lot of things to improve on before we start worrying about other teams and what they have going on.”

Still searching for their first win of 2010-11, the Rockets have bigger problems.

Chief among them is the issue of how to find a groove with Yao strictly limited to two quarters of work.

Without Yao last season, the Rockets were an up-tempo, high-scoring bunch. This season, Houston has struggled to strike a balance between that style and the more plodding approach required when Yao is on the floor.

Defense has also been problematic for the Rockets, who rank last in the NBA in points allowed and have surrendered at least 107 in each game.

“There’s no easy answer,” Houston coach Rick Adelman said. “We just have to keep working at it until we break through.”

Watching from afar, the Spurs are certain that a breakthrough is coming for the Rockets. They are just hoping it doesn’t come tonight.

“They’re a very talented team, and it’s too early in the season for anyone to start panicking,” Jefferson said. “We still haven’t played a complete game, start to finish, so we’re more worried about how we’re playing.”

Jeff McDonald

6 Responses

Macedonian I was thinking of you late in the game when we had floundered the lead relative to our shared notion of the law of averages and that the Rockets would come out with a win. Good for us Spurs fans. Cheers.

Macedonian it will be interesting to see if Splitter does guard Scola. Scola has been on a tear from his FIBA play. When Brazil played Argentina Splitter guarded Oberto and Varejao guarded Scola. It will be interesting to see if Pop puts TD on Scola and Blair on Jordan Hill, who’s likely to start in Yao’s place. If Popf opts to start Dice or Splitter with TD it will likely be that either of those 2 will guard Scola. The one thing that bothers me given the law of averages, is that the Rockets are due for a win.

Since so many of us seem so old, does anyone remember the movie “Abbott and Costello Meets the Jolly Green Giant”? Yao does a perfect imitation of The Green Giant. Abbott and Costello came up to his waist and ran around in circles and through his legs while the giant stalked them at one-tenth their pace of movement. By the time he got where they were, they had run somewhere else. InsideJRB, I wonder what the giant’s PER was?